Thursday, March 10, 2016

Propaganda mills

That, anyhow, is the charge being leveled by the campaign of Clinton rival Bernie Sanders. They may have a point.

Back
in the summer of 2014—when Blue Nation Review was a fledgling blog
dedicated to creating “a place where progressives can debate where we
want to be as a movement,” per the website’s mission statement—it treated Sanders as a liberal hero.

Wednesday, March 9, 2016. Chaos and violence continue, the training of
Iraqi forces continues but with very unimpressive numbers, Gen Lloyd
Austin breaks with the White House over the Kurds, we note the
unresponsive State Dept under Hillary Clinton, and much more.

We have to start with ignorance. Every four years this comes up from someone. It's stupidity.

So, no, Rude Pundit, I will not shut the f*ck up and resign myself to
voting for Hillary-> if Bernie doesn't become the nominee. I will
write in Bernie Sanders so Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC can
count exactly how may votes they lost by running a moderate Republican
neocon warhawk for the presidency. If we reward the DNC for merely not
being the knuckle-dragging mouth-breathing racist misogynist
Islamophobes as they bow to the agenda of the one-percent, that's what
they'll continue to be.

I don't know what state Russ is in but it's very likely that Russ will end up voting for Hillary Clinton.

B-b-b-but he says he will write in Bernie's name!!!!!

Stupidity.

Know your state rules.

In most states, if you write in a name and they are not recognized as a
write-in for that election, the vote is 'interpreted.' If you write
down any Democrat -- including dead ones like FDR and JFK -- the
write-in vote goes to that political party.

So if Bernie is not running in the state as a write-in candidate, the
vote will be interpreted as a vote for whomever is heading the
Democratic Party ticket and will be counted as a vote for Hillary
Clinton if she gets the nomination.

You need to stop playing stupid.

We have gone over this every four years.

It's past time for people to learn that a write-in is actually the stupidest thing you can do if you are protesting.

Because you can write in Minnie Mouse or Lady Gaga or Cher and it can be
interpreted to be a vote for someone who is on the ticket -- Cher being
a very public Hillary supporter, a write-in vote for Cher could be
interpreted as a vote for Hillary.

If there is a write-in candidate who will be recognized in your state, by all means vote for them if you'd like to.

But if you're just writing in a name -- Bernie Sanders (if he doesn't
get the nomination) -- grasp that you could very well end up voting for
Hillary (if she gets the nomination) by writing in Bernie's name.

While we're doing voter education, a common mistake eager voters can
make is having one of those paper ballots that you fill in circles on
and filling in all the circles -- or one circle if they're voting
straight ticket (voting for the same political party in all offices) --
and then also writing in the name of Bernie (if he's on the ballot) or
whomever (that is on the ballot). Your vote will likely not be counted
unless someone calls for a recount and then people go through the
'spoiled' votes or 'under votes' by hand.

There are a lot of ways we think we can make our vote 'stronger' that
instead make our vote not count. Those are just of two of them.

If the network news truly cared about voting -- and not about playing
cheap with the coverage (we get the horserace coverage and not real
coverage because it's very cheap to produce and put on the air) -- they
would go over these things for the voter every four years. (Especially
after Florida in 2000 when the entire country was focused on the
spoiled votes and the uncounted ones.)

Again, Russ Belville has written an excellent and strong column but that
last paragraph is 100% wrong in most states and before people think of
writing in a candidate they need to find out their state's rules on
write-ins and how their vote might be interpreted because in most states
it will not count as a vote for the name they write in.

Changing topics . . .

In Iraq, the Iraqi Security Forces,
which include Iraqi Army and Counter-Terrorism Services (CTS)
forces, Kurdish Peshmerga, and various
Sunni
and Shia volunteer
elements, with
the support of
U.S. and Coalition air operations
and advisors and materiel donations, have effectively halted
ISIL's advance
. The enemy is
now
almost exclusively focused on defending his strongholds rather
than projecting combat power.
Additionally, ISIL's
counter-attack capability
has been
reduced
as a
result of battlefield losses, although we see the group conducting deadly terrorist attacks against
Iraqi forces in Anbar and west of Baghdad, and, worryingly, civilian targets -- including in areas far
from its control, in Baghdad and parts of the Shia-populated south.

Austin was one of three generals appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee
to offer testimony in the hearing. The other two were Gen Joseph Vogel (Special Operations Command) and Gen David
Rodriguez (US Africa Command). The Chair
of the Committee is Senator John McCain, the Ranking Member is Senator
Jack Reed.

The quoted section in bold above was from Austin's opening remarks.

The opening remarks are sometimes also referred to as the prepared
remarks or the written testimony because witnesses are supposed to
submit those to the Congressional committees in advance. This allows
members of Congress (and their staff) to pour over that prepared
testimony in advance and to come up with questions to expand on issues
being raised in that testimony or questions on issues that they see are
not being covered in the written statements.

When Secretary of State John Kerry was a Senator, if he headed a
Committee (such as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee), he would
urge witnesses to summarize (briefly) their pages of written testimony
instead of reading them word for word.

He was the exception.

(And as Secretary of State, he himself reads every word dully and in
monotone, eating up time and dragging each hearing down. Were he the
Chair of a Committee he was testifying before, he would cut himself off
and tell himself to summarize the statement to save time.)

In most hearings, most witnesses still read every word. They may alter a
word or two -- often due to getting lost while reading out loud from
the pages before them -- but they don't usually introduce new ideas.
There's a time limit for these opening statements and non-government
officials will sometimes see the warning light flashing (indicating time
is almost up) and try to quickly summarize the rest of their pages.

But for the most part, people stick to the written testimony when reading word for word.

So this is from Austin's prepared remarks:

We
are making progress militarily
in our efforts to
defeat
ISIL, as demonstrated by the recent
victories in Ramadi and Shaddadi
.
However,
military
success will
be lasting only
if corresponding
political
progress is achieved
in both Iraq and Syria
.
The
Government of Iraq must take the
necessary steps towards greater inclusiveness. Iraq will not remain a unified state long-term
without
the support of the major ethno-sectarian groups.

And we are noting that because it's important and it's something the
State Dept (and that includes Barack's Special Envoy Brett McGurk)
repeatedly forget to address publicly.

The White House continues to supply the Baghdad-based government in Iraq with weapons, US troops and money.

And it never says, "Haider al-Abadi, you've been prime minister since
2014 and we're not seeing any progress on inclusion. If you don't stop
the persecution of the Sunnis, we're not sending use these jets" or
whatever.

Under Barack, the US State Dept doesn't do diplomacy.

While Austin's point is very, very important, he made another remark that was also highly important.

Gen Lloyd Austin: Of note, the Kurish Peshmerga remain critical to
our efforts on the ground in the northern part of the country. They are
irreplaceable and we must do all that we can to support them.

Some readers will agree with him on that, some won't.

Most members of the US Congress -- Democrats and Republicans -- will agree with that remark.

Does the White House?

Actually, no, it does not.

Nor does the US State Dept which tries to pretend it's being 'impartial' while toadying to the Baghdad-based government.

That makes the statement important.

You know what else makes it important?

It appears no where in his written testimony.

He wasn't two minutes into his opening remarks when he made this
comment, reading from a version of his opening remarks that was pretty
much word-for-word what he submitted (and what will be in the official
record -- the written testimony is put into the official record).

But that passage?

His comments on the Peshmerga did not appear in the submitted remarks.

Why?

Because the remarks would not have been cleared for submission had the statement appeared in them.

The official position of the administration goes against those remarks -- as is clear in every State Dept press briefing.

Since the fall of 2014, the US military has been on the ground in Iraq
acting as trainers to the Iraqi forces. We're noting that because
Austin testified on the 'progress' there. And maybe some will see it as
progress, but I don't.

According to the general, by the middle of December 2015, the US military had trained "more than 19,000 Iraqi security forces."

19,000 is not impressive for approximately 16 months.

19,000 is not impressive even for a year.

At least 3,000 of the US troops in Iraq (approximately 4,450 US troops
are in Iraq, per the Pentagon -- and this number does not include US
Special Forces which are in Iraq and in combat operations in Iraq) are
present for training.

19,000 is not impressive.

In fact, people should be asking why the number is so low.

Is there resistance to training?

That was the case when the State Dept was put in charge of training. As
Barack's drawdown began (pulling most but not all US troops out of
Iraq), the mission in Iraq was transferred from the Defense Dept to the
State Dept. With State acting as lead, the Iraqi forces did not want
training.

They did not show up for training.

Officials stated publicly that the money would be wasted because they didn't want training.

"Number one, does the government of Iraq -- whose personnel we intend
to train -- support the program?" asked US House Rep Gary Ackerman
yesterday. "Interviews with senior Iraqi officials by the Special
Inspector General show utter disdain for the program. When the Iraqis
suggest that we take our money and do things instead that are good for
the United States, I think that might be a clue."

That
was Ackerman's important question yesterday afternoon at the House
Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia hearing
on Iraq. US House Rep Steve Chabot is the Chair of the Subcommittee, US
House Rep Gary Ackerman is the Ranking Member. The first panel was the
State Dept's Brooke Darby. The second panel was the Inspector General
for the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction
Stuart W. Bowen and SIGIR's Assistant Inspector General for Iraq Glenn
D. Furbish. Chabot had a few comments to make at the start of the
hearing. They often echoed comments made in the November 15th Senate
Armed Services Committee hearing [see the November 15th "Iraq snapshot," the November 16th "Iraq snapshot" and the November 17th "Iraq snapshot" and other community reporting on the hearing included Ava's "Scott Brown questions Panetta and Dempsey (Ava)," Wally's "The costs (Wally)" and Kat's "Who wanted what?"
]. But while Senators Joe Lieberman, John McCain and Lindsey Graham
made their comments during rounds of questions, Chabot made his as the
start of the hearing in his opening remarks.

Chair
Steve Chabot: Unfortunately, these negotiations failed due to, in my
opinion, mismanagement by this White House. Amazingly, the White House
is now trying to tout the breakdown and lack of agreement as a success
in as much as it has met a promise President Obama made as a candidate.
This blatant politicization calls into question the White House's effort
to secure an extension. Fulfilling a campaign promise at the expense
of American national security is at best strategic neglect and at worse
downright irresponsible. And the White House tacitly admits this in
negotiating an extension in the first place. I fear, however, that our
objective is no longer to ensure that Iraq is stable but merely to
withdraw our forces by the end of this year in order to meet a political
time line. Saying that Iraq is secure, stable and self-reliant -- as
Deputy National Security Advisor Dennis McDonough recently did -- does
not make it so. And to borrow a quote from then-Senator Hillary
Clinton , It requires "the willing suspension of disbelief" to believe
that withdrawing our forces from Iraq at a time when Iranian agents seek
to harm at every turn our country and its allies advances our strategic
interests. Although I understand that Iraq is a sovereign country, I
believe there is much more we could have done to secure a reasonable
troop presence beyond the end of this year.

McCain
was wrongly criticized for not grasping Iraq was a sovereign nation in
some press accounts. Wrongly. McCain grasped that fact and acknowledged
it repeatedly in the hearing. Chabot may have wanted all of that at
the start of the hearing to ensure that he was not misunderstood. In
addition, Chabot noted the "reports of obstruction and noncooperation on
the part of the Department of State during SIGIR's audit. This is
extremely distressing and, to echo the sentiments of several of my
colleagues in the other body which they recently expressed in a letter
to Secretary of State Clinton, the Department of State is legally
obliged to cooperate fully with SIGIR in the execution of its mission;
jurisdictional games are unacceptable." In his opening remarks, the
Ranking Member weighed in on that topic as well.

Ranking
Member Gary Ackerman: He [Bowen] has testified before other bodies of
Congress, he has released written quarterly reports, as well as specific
audits and the message is the same: The program for which the
Department of State officially took responsibility on October 1st is
nearly a text book case of government procurement -- in this case,
foreign assistance -- doesn't buy what we think we're paying for, what
we want and why more money will only make the problem worse. Failed
procurement is not a problem unique to the State Department. And when
it comes to frittering away millions, Foggy Bottom is a rank amateur
compared to the Department of Defense. As our colleagues on the Armed
Services committees have learned, the best of projects with the most
desirable of purposes can go horribly, horribly off-track; and the
hardest thing it seems that any bureaucracy can do is pull the plug on a
failed initiative. How do we know the Police Development Program is
going off-track? Very simple things demonstrate a strong likelihood of
waste and mismanagement. Number one, does the government of Iraq --
whose personnel we intend to train -- support the program? Interviews
with senior Iraqi officials by the Special Inspector General show utter
disdain for the program. When the Iraqis suggest that we take our money
and do things instead that are good for the United States, I think that
might be a clue.

Ackerman went on to
note how "the program's objectives remain a mushy bowl of vague
platitudes" and how it had "no comprehensive and detailed plan for
execution, there is no current assessment of Iraqi police force
capability and, perhaps most tellingly, there are no outcome-based
metrics. This is a flashing-red warning light."

And I would argue that what's going on currently is another flashing-red warning light.

19,000 is not an impressive number -- not for the time spent, not for the money spent.

No clear cut plan has been presented to the Congress or, more importantly, to the American people.

When you are spending the people's money, you need to be clear about the goals and the measures.

Dropping back to that December 1, 2011 snapshot:

Brooke Darby was sent before the Committee to spin. I'm not going
to waste much time or space on her testimony and I do feel sorry for her
that she was farmed out on this assignment. "I can't answer that
question," she said when asked anything that hadn't been covered in at
least three other hearings or "I'm not prepared to put a time limit on
it." (The last one to Gary Ackerman's question of if will take the
State Dept 8 years to train the Iraqi police?) I think she did a strong
effort trying to sell the plan but I've heard it all the talking points
before over and over -- and so had the Subcommittee, as was evident by
their reactions -- and there's no point in including too much of it
here.

She referenced her conversation recently
with Adnan al-Asadi, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Interior. It
was apparently a good conversation and he believes trainers and training
are both needed. Chair Chalbot asked if he denied the comments? (He
is among those dismissive of training in the SIGIR reports that Ranking
Member Ackerman referred to.) Darby testified that he didn't.

[. . .]

From that first panel, we'll note this exchange.

Ranking Member Gary Ackerman: When will they be willing to stand up without us?

Brooke Darby: I wish I could answer that question.

Ranking Member Gary Ackerman: Then why are we spending money if we don't have the answer?

[long pause]

Ranking
Member Gary Ackerman: You know, this is turning into what happens after
a bar mitzvah or a Jewish wedding. It's called "a Jewish goodbye."
Everybody keeps saying goodbye but nobody leaves.

What Ackerman asked then should be asked today. (Ackerman, a Democrat,
was first elected to the US Congress in 1983 and served to the start of
2013 after deciding not to seek re-election in the 2012 race.)

In the above, you'll see some problems for the State Dept -- at that
time headed by Hillary Clinton. Where you see "[. . .]," I've omitted
parts not having to do with training. If you read the December 1, 2011
snapshot, you'll see the Committee members clearly expressing impatience
and frustration with Hillary Clinton's State Dept not being upfront and
honest.

That's her record.

We documented it here.

We now know that she used a personal server during this time. It is
clearly obvious that she did so to avoid public accountability -- her
e-mails couldn't be searched because they existed on a private server
and not on the State Dept server.

But it wasn't just the public that Hillary showed disdain for, she showed it for Congress.

She refused to supply them with detailed budgets, she refused to supply
them with information, she refused to answer their questions.

A Hillary presidency would be more of the same.

She doesn't feel she's accountable to anyone.

Which is another reason Senator Bernie Sanders' big win in Michigan Tuesday was so amazing and important.

His campaign issued the following today:

March 9, 2016

MIAMI – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders issued the following statement
tonight after The Associated Press projected that he won Tuesday’s
primary election in Michigan:“I am grateful to the people of Michigan for defying the pundits and
pollsters and giving us their support. This is a critically important
night. We came from 30 points down in Michigan and we’re seeing the same
kind of come-from-behind momentum all across America.

“Not only is Michigan the gateway to the rest of the industrial
Midwest, the results there show that we are a national campaign. We
already have won in the Midwest, New England and the Great Plains and as
more people get to know more about who we are and what our views are
we’re going to do very well.”

The election’s best news thus far is the evidence it offers that a
campaign funded by small donors that stays true to its principles can
beat big money. But we don’t know how much dark and super PAC money
Clinton commands, or its impact on the race. Here’s hoping the next time
she says Wall Street is spending money to defeat her, Bernie points out
that it probably spends as much to elect her and that the whole reason
he’s running is to make it harder for Wall Street to cover its bets.Clinton
began the race for the nomination 40 points up. Yet all these
advantages — money, superdelegates, calendar, shutting down debates and
withholding election results — couldn’t save her. She needed yet more
help and got it from liberal lobbies that are all that remains of the
great grass-roots movements that once drove all our social progress.
Most are led not by grass-roots leaders but by technicians who seek
money, access and career advancement and rely on the same consultants
advising Clinton, Obama and a long list of corporate clients.

It's a great column and demonstrated Bill saw what many were missing.
(Disclosure, I know Bill Curry. And am so impressed that he wrote what
he wrote -- I know him from the Clinton years and would not have
expected him to publicly go against Hillary's campaign. Good for Bill.)

The US Defense Dept announced strikes on Iraq today.

We'll note that in just a second. But first, we're not Judith Miller or
THE NEW YORK TIMES. Just because the US government announces something
doesn't mean it's true. They've been shooting off their mouth in the
last 24 hours. It's probably lies -- but THE TIMES ran with it.

I say probably lies because it's actually a response to Tuesday's hearing and comments a senator made.

Hopefully, we'll have time to cover that this week.

In the meantime, we'll close with the US Defense Dept's announcement on strikes:

Strikes in Iraq

Attack, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 11
strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the Iraqi
government:

-- Near Kisik, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit.

-- Near Mosul, four strikes struck
two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL fighting
position, two ISIL vehicles and an ISIL assembly area.

-- Near Ramadi, three strikes
struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed six ISIL fighting
positions, five ISIL vehicles, and an ISIL vehicle-borne bomb.

-- Near Sinjar, a strike destroyed five ISIL fighting positions and two ISIL mortar positions.

-- Near Sultan Abdallah, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical
unit, destroying an ISIL mortar position and an ISIL assembly area and
suppressing an ISIL fighting position.

Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic
events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a
single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a
single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle
is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons
against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for
example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or
impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not
report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number
of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual
munition impact points against a target.